The pharma industry is increasingly embracing social media as a tool for influence – a term we are used to hearing in the context of fashion, beauty, or sport. But now, with the rise of new social media platforms like TikTok – where users are increasingly seeking out health-related advice in a more informal or entertaining capacity – health influencers are on the rise.
Both patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) are increasingly using social platforms in a public-facing manner; to effectively communicate with one another, increase awareness about certain issues, as well as to promote tools and therapies. According to LinkedIn data, for example, there was a 30% rise in healthcare conversations on its platform related to topics such as medicine, health, and wellness in 2021 compared to the year prior.
So, how is the industry embracing the strategy? In this article we’ll look at HCP influencers, expert patients, prominent campaigns, regulatory challenges, dividing the personal and the professional, and building trust through long-term partnerships.
The HCP influencer: Offering accessible education and advice
Let’s start with HCPs themselves, whose popularity on social soared during the Covid-19 pandemic amidst misinformation, fear, and the quickly changing situation. HCPs – from nurses to top-level surgeons – began to take to platforms like Instagram and TikTok to offer advice, as well as their own experience of working on the frontline.
NHS surgeon Dr. Karan Rajan, whose TikToks on Covid were largely centred around dispelling myths and promoting social distancing, saw his popularity soar on the platform. Since this time, his content has evolved into various healthcare strands, which often use humour or relatability to inform users about medical matters, with titles such as ‘dispelling medical myths’ or ‘ask Dr. Karan.’
TikTok has become a hotbed for health and medical-related content. As it stands, there are 906.7 million views of content tagged with #healthtok and 40.6 billion views of #doctor on the platform.
Covid didn’t only spur on HCPs talking about physical ailments. With the general stress of pandemic lockdowns affecting public mental health, doctors in the field of psychiatry and psychology also started to use their influence on social media, building on their expertise to offer help and advice to users in need. Dr. Julie Smith, for example, is a clinical psychologist who started making TikToks back in 2019, offering advice on topics such as anxiety and stress. With demand for this kind of content soaring, Smith has since gone on to amass three million followers on the platform, as well as publish a book titled ‘Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?’
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So, why have these figures become so popular on social platforms? Catherine Devaney, Founder of Curious Health Communications, told Econsultancy that “In some ways, pharma pioneered working with ‘influencers”.
“There is a well-established approach going back decades of identifying health care professionals who have therapy area expertise, are well networked and speak at conferences or publish papers regularly,” explained Devaney. “They are referred to as Key Opinion Leaders and they are often invited to join advisory boards and get involved in clinical trials.”
The nature of Covid-19 also turned government health and medical advisors into more widely known influencers (through research and data), increasing the public’s awareness of issues during the pandemic.
Raman Sehgal, founder and global president of Ramarketing, further explained to Econsultancy. “The general public is now much more aware of the pharma industry and will be able to name global pharmaceutical companies that previously would have not been on their radar,” he said. “With the pandemic raising the profile of the space, it is not uncommon to see and hear from company CEOs via mainstream media and for them to be called upon as experts to contribute to trending news. This profile has enabled more companies to raise brand awareness and champion their people, products, and services. In addition, these companies and their c-suite teams have increased opportunities to feature on podcasts, and panels to reach wider audiences.”
As such, influence within pharma or healthcare does not merely extend to posts on Instagram or TikTok. However, there’s no doubting that these are accessible and popular platforms, enabling HCPs to disseminate information or advice on a large scale, thereby expanding their influence.
The expert patient: Building trust and engaging niche or target audiences
Catherine Devaney says that it is not just expertise that defines a healthcare influencer, but increasingly, it is experience. This is rooted in the concept of the ‘expert patient’, defined as ‘a patient who has significant knowledge of his/her disease and treatment in addition to self-management skills’.
“In the last 10 years, [the KOL] identification process has moved online and opened up our ability to find people who perhaps don’t fit all criteria but over-index in one really important aspect,” she says. “Take rare diseases for example. An individual’s ‘reach’ may not be large, but their relevance and resonance scores could be off the chart based on the number of people impacted by a particular rare disease.”
It’s less common for patients to become influencers organically, of course, but it is becoming a key strategy for pharma brands that want to generate awareness about a cause or product, and crucially, to build authenticity and trust. Consequently, there are companies like Health Union, which helps to connect patients with pharma companies (following its acquisition of WeGo Health in 2021).
LEO Pharma is an example of a big pharma company that has worked with micro or so-called ‘patient influencers’, such as its ‘Heads Up to Psoriasis’ campaign, which encourages people to get the best out of their GP appointments. The campaign’s success stems from the fact that the people featured in it have direct experience of what they are talking about, and as a result, the advice given feels more authentic and trustworthy than if it were coming from an HCP or GP.
By featuring patient influencers who will likely share the campaign on their own social media channels, the message also becomes amplified, and is much more likely to reach the target audience.
Targeting younger demographics via social platforms
Another reason pharma companies are turning to influencers is to reach a specific audience or demographic on social media platforms, who might otherwise be unreceptive or fail to engage. There is a reason that consumers might not be engaging, however. Rebecca Carter, Head of Social Media at Ogilvy Health, told Econsultancy that “there’s still room for improvement” when it comes to many pharma social strategies.
“Time and time again we see companies failing on social media because they don’t have a clear objective,” she says. “More than ever, we see companies attempting to share content that isn’t optimised for the channels (e.g. too much text and no creative strategy), or they try to capitalise on cultural moments (e.g. Pride Month) to showcase the ways in which they care more than just their bottom line, but without showing how these initiatives drive change and support causes in the process.”
This is where patient influencers can be hugely effective, as they enable pharma companies to clearly convey a message to a specific target audience on social. Influencers can more authentically align with certain cultural touch-points, too.
This is what Pfizer did back in 2018 with its #24YouHaveThePower campaign, which aimed to reach 15 to 24-year-olds to encourage them to get vaccinated against meningococcal meningitis. We also saw this again in 2021, as the White House enlisted both celebrities and TikTokers to promote the Covid-19 vaccine to their social media audiences. This was also done on a smaller scale in the US, with states and governments recruiting micro-influencers with modest but highly engaged social followings to build trust in the vaccine. The Guardian reports how police sergeant Carlos Cornejo, for example, was recruited by Colorado leaders to persuade vaccine sceptics of its safety, particularly within Spanish-speaking communities where uptake was lacking.
Navigating regulatory challenges (and implementing strict approval processes)
While we are increasingly seeing pharma companies enlist influencers, the strategy is still not as common as it is in other categories such as retail or beauty. The reason for this is strict regulations, with both brands and influencers required to adhere to specific codes of conduct, such as the PMCA Code of Practice in the UK, and the FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion in the US. Failure to do so can not only lead to fines or other types of regulatory punishment, but crucially, the distrust of consumers – which is something that pharma companies are already tackling.
One well-known example of this is Kim Kardashian, who in 2015 promoted the morning sickness medication Diclegis on her Instagram page. Following this, the FDA issued a ‘Warning Letter’ citing Kardashian’s posts, stating that they had failed to communicate any risk information about the drug, and the posts were taken down as a result. The fact that Kardashian was paid to promote the medication further exacerbated negative media coverage.
As a result of cases like this, pharma companies typically stick to ‘safe’ campaigns related to patient activation and education, which means no direct mention of medicines. In other instances, pharma companies tend to exert strict control over any content that is created by influencers in order to avoid any breaches. However, Catherine Devaney says that this strategy tends to result in a loss of impact. Instead, Devaney states that better and more effective internal processes need to be be put in place.
“The solution here is to ensure that influencers know that they can’t talk about any kind of medicine as that would be seen as promotion of a medicine to the public,” she says. “They create the content that they believe is going to resonate with their followers, but it does need to be reviewed by an approval team to ensure that there are no more unintended and subtle Code breaches within. It is important that the approval team understand from the outset what the campaign needs to achieve – authenticity and content that resonates.”
Building trust through long-term partnerships and brand purpose
In order to further build trust, Ogilvy’s Rebecca Carter suggests that the industry needs to focus on long-term strategies and partnerships. “[Pharma] companies who are doing influence well are ones which build influence across their full ecosystem, not just for one-off campaigns but for long-term programmes, partner communications, employee activities and the more traditional guidance including clinical trial participation.”
Not all healthcare influencer campaigns have to feature patients or HCPs either. Pharma companies that shine a light on important subjects, and in turn demonstrate their brand purpose, can also increase trust – regardless of the type of influencers featured.
Bringing attention to the downsides of social media (and influencer culture in particular) can enhance this dynamic, helping to break down the fourth wall to enable users to engage with influencers whilst also seeing their more real and authentic side. Bupa’s #PowerfulRealStories campaign is a good example of this in action. The campaign, which features influencers such as writer Poorna Bell, uncovers the unrealistic expectations that come with being an influencer, and the wider issue of comparison culture that can be detrimental to women’s mental health.
Putting professional boundaries firmly in place
Alongside regulatory issues – for HCPs in particular – there is also the rising issue of privacy, as well as other issues around patient confidentiality, trolling or harassment and abuse.
“Social media can blur the lines between the professional and personal and what HCPs post online is ultimately down to their own personal judgement,” says Rebecca Carter, pointing to guidance such as the Doctors’ Use of Social Media by the GMC and Social Media Highway Code by the Royal College of General Practitioners – both invaluable resources for HCPs using social.
The issue of personal-professional boundaries is perhaps less black and white, however, with HCP influencers likely to be bombarded with messages on social platforms, and no formal training of how to cope with the mental overload. Ultimately, there should always be a distinction between any personal and professional profiles, as well as clear boundaries in place. As the GMC states, “[HCPs] must make sure your conduct justifies your patients’ trust in you and the public’s trust in the profession.”
It’s a dichotomy that many influencers face of course – share too much or too little and consumer trust is eroded, which is the opposite of the over-arching goal of building trust. As Devaney elaborates, “Some of pharma’s issues with trust are created because they are often so worried about saying anything and being criticised or their interpretation of the PMCPA Code of Practice stops them from engaging on social at all.”
For pharma and healthcare brands, the opportunity to humanise the industry remains a big opportunity, which is why many are now acting with more enthusiasm than reticence.
“Research points to the fact that the public want to hear from the C-Suite leadership of companies… they want to know understand their personal actions, what positive impact they are having on society and how they are looking after their employees,” states Devaney. “Social is perfect for this and pharma companies need to be more consistently human on channels to help build trust.”
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